UTIs: Water and Sensible Prevention Beat Cranberry Juice

Summary

Sensible prevention genuinely lowers how often recurrent UTIs come back in women — drinking more water nearly halved episodes in the best trial, standardised cranberry proanthocyanidin at an adequate dose gives a modest reduction, and post-menopausal vaginal estrogen is guideline-backed — but cranberry *juice* is oversold sugar-water that does nothing for an active infection, D-mannose failed its best trial, most acute UTIs still need antibiotics, and the dangerous error is self-treating what is actually a kidney infection (fever or flank pain), a UTI in a man or in pregnancy, or visible blood